(14 Jun 2012) General Robert Mood, the head of the United Nations observers mission in Syria, was meeting with the Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad in Damascus on Thursday.
Mood arrived at the Dama Rose hotel in the Syrian capital shortly before Mekdad.
Meanwhile, a convoy of UN observers set off from the hotel to visit the scene of a suicide bombing in Damascus.
The blast wounded 10 and damaged one of Shiite Islam's holiest shrines, Syria's state-run news agency and witnesses at the scene said.
The suicide bomber detonated a car packed with explosives near the golden-domed Sayyida Zainab shrine, witnesses said.
The shrine attracts tens of thousands of Shiite pilgrims from around the world every year who come to visit the tomb, which is believed to house the remains of the granddaughter of Islam's Prophet Muhammad.
The site is popular with Iranian and other Shiite pilgrims and tourists.
The blast is believed to have been targeting an office for the military security police department in the neighbourhood.
It was not immediately clear whether the shrine was the intended target, since the site of the blast is only 15 metres (yards) from a police station.
Several bombings in the past few months have targeted security buildings and police buses.
Car bombs and suicide bombings have become common in Syria as the 15-month uprising against President Bashar Assad becomes increasingly militarised.
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